[HECnet] Speaking of old decnet releases

[Johnny Billquist]

A couple of more comments:

The manual I have for DECNET-8 is dated February 1977.
The timeline for DECnet on Wikipedia claims that phase II was introduced 
in 1975.
According that same article, it would appear that only RSX ever had 
DECnet phase I.

But information on Wikipedia should as usual be taken with a grain of 
salt. Especially when it a bit more obscure information, for which there 
are few sources, and the information might be written by someone without 
direct experience.

A couple of quotes from the code, that might help:

 From NSP.PA:
/NETWORK SERVICES PROTOCOL FOR DECNET/8
/ IMPLEMENTED AT SPEC LEVEL 2.2
/
/J. ROTH        23-NOV-75
/JR             17-DEC-76       ADDED VERSION 2.2 CHANGES
/
/  WARNING:
/
/  THERE EXISTS A BUG IN THE NETWORK DESIGN, SUCH THAT DROPPAGE
/  OF LEADING 0 BITS IN THE FIRST FRAME OF THE NSP DATA MESSAGE
/  IS NOT DETECTED BY CRC. TO CIRCUMVENT THIS BUG, THIS NSP CODE
/  ALWAYS SETS THE NSP 'BLOCKING' BIT WHEN SENDING, AND IGNORES IT
/  WHEN RECEIVING.
/
/
/ DECNET/8 RELEASE VERSION 1
/ DECNET/8 PATCH LEVEL A
/ APRIL 8,1977
/
         VERSION=01
         PATCH="C
/JR01   16-MAY-77       FIX CONNECT REJECT BY DISCONNECT BUG
/  NSP02        SCR 9/77        FIX INTERRUPT PACKET BUG        [02]
/


So, despite the comments, it's version 1C, and not 1A. And the last fix 
was in September 1977.
And "SPEC LEVEL 2.2" might be useful in figuring out what phase it might 
be, and it might be a hint for phase 2.

   Johnny

On 2018-09-19 00:30, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Hmm. Thinking some more, I remember that we had a discussion about this 
> about 2 years ago.
> 
> At that time, I tried to figure it out, and found DECnet-8 to look like 
> it was somewhere between phase I and phase II, so I guess my previous 
> comment was too hasty, and it don't seem to be a proper phase II 
> implementation.
> 
> But, like I mentioned the previous time, I can go and dig more into the 
> code, if someone is interested.
> 
>    Johnny
> 
> On 2018-09-18 22:56, Paul Koning wrote:
>> Phase 2, or phase 1?  I have seen (and read, cursorily) a manual for a 
>> PDP-8 based DECnet phase 1.  It made it quite clear that there is no 
>> plausible way to be compatible with that, it's quite a different 
>> protocol than Phase 2 and later.
>>
>>     paul
>>
>>
>>> On Sep 18, 2018, at 4:50 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>>
>>> There is a phase ii release for rts-8. How easy it would be to get it 
>>> up and running might be a different story, but the sources are on the 
>>> internet.
>>>
>>> Johnny
>>>
>>>
>>> Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> skrev: (18 september 2018 
>>> 19:30:56 CEST)
>>> Does anyone have the Phase II DECnet that goes with RSTS V7.0?  I 
>>> think it calls itself DECnet/E V1.1, rather confusingly.
>>>
>>> For that matter, are there any Phase II DECnet releases around?  I 
>>> know of the TOPS-20 one; any others?  Ditto for Phase III.
>>>
>>>     paul
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Skickat från min Android-enhet med K-9 Mail. Ursäkta min fåordighet.
>>
> 
> 


-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol